The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 51 No.1 | June 2024

Local Group Programmes

up - although having analysed further census records, he concluded that an average of 50% of moves in a 50-year period were within just a six mile radius. He gave examples of the spread of the Fullman surname, historically common in Kent, throughout the censuses. Splitting out the occurrences into groups of Kent, London and Other, Laurie showed how the percentage of Fullmans recorded Kent reduced as the other categories grew over time. If an individual or family were missing from the likely early parish records, he suggested using other methods – like looking for similar or unusual names that might be associated with a certain family. Non-conformist records might hold the key. Generally, yeoman landowners or other labourers didn’t move far and may be found in lease agreements or mentioned in wills. He discussed other resources that were based on surnames – the Hearth Tax; marriage indexes (found in county record offices); the Society of Genealogists indexes; trade directories and the Protestation Oath Returns from the 17th century found in Kew. Other more common ones like parish records and census returns are now indexed too. The moral was keep looking as your ancestors may be closer than you thought! Forthcoming Meetings:

The Search for Great Grandmother’s Farm (In Germany)

June 13th

Brian Margetson Christopher Loader

The Secrets of Salonica - a forgotten war

July 11th

September 12th Life of Early 19th Century Soldiers

Maggie Eltham

Basingstoke Meetings normally commence at 7. 30 p.m. and are held on the fourth Wednesday every month (except August and December) at St Michael’s Church Cottage Hall, Church Street. Contact: Email: (January) Members’ Evening We started the new year with a very welcome visit from Tony Sinclair who updated us on all matters HGS. Our topic for the evening was “Resolutions – top 3 things to find in 2024” and this generated a lively discussion with thought-provoking contributions from lots of the attendees including Tony who told us about family members involved at Dunkirk. A popular resolution was to make full use of the GRO digital (£2.50) death certificates to top and tail more of our ancestors. (February) No meeting as the venue was unavailable. basingstoke@hgs-online.org.uk

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